Café Central

What a swell place! I felt way underdressed here, but in any outfit lacking an umbrella with a duck’s head on the handle and an overcoat and a bowler, I suppose that feeling is natural. We tried to take some pictures of the interior, but Wikipedia’s done a better job (and their images are licensed for distribution…love that).

Aside from the decor, and the history, which you can read about at Wikipedia, we ordered (on our first visit) einen Verlängerten and einen Mohren im Hemd (shown at right, click for details).

Sarah

Welcome to our all-Frommer’s vacation! I swear, the Vienna section of the Frommer’s Austria is impeccable! Although they’ve rarely led us astray, they were unbelievably on the mark for every recommendation in this section.

Vienna is famous for its cafés and confections, and this place is like a textbook example of what Viennese café culture was all about at the end of the nineteenth century. The decor is incredibly elegant, but I only felt underdressed until our wonderfully formal, kind and patient waiter attended to us. We both had the same thing (Mohr im Hemd and a Verlängerten) on our first visit and we were so impressed that we got Carolyn and Max to pop in here for a coffee on our last day in Vienna. On the second visit, Cliff had a Marzipan ‘Potato’ (yellow cake inside a marzipan shell, dusted with cocoa powder to simulate ‘dirt’) and I took a chance on a slice of Altenberg cake (chocolatey, creamy, cakey love). It’s a little pricey, but isn’t a slice of sweet creamy history worth it?